Inside the Moon
Water Test Results A4
Art Walk A2
Issue 656
The
Island Moon The voice of The Island since 1996
November 10, 2016
Around The Island
By Dale Rankin editor@islandmoon.com The election is behind us, the mosquitoes have all gone to wherever it is mosquitoes go when they aren’t biting us, the water is full of hardheads “as big as sharks” and the La Posada Lighted Boat Parade is a mere five weekends down the Island calendar. We will be printing entry forms for the boat parade in the next several issues as the time gets closer. The parade route and times will be the same as previous years with the parade muster area in the Cartagena canal on the north side of Whitecap. We include a full schedule of events in this issue. A few early Winter Texans have begun to trickle in and the water temperature is still around 80 and finding its way to the dune line at high tide for the last several days. It’s been a good time for surfers who have kept the waters around Bob Hall Pier active.
Great Pumpkin Massacre
The Constables were at the scene of the Great Kleberg Pumpkin Massacre a couple of miles south of Bob Hall Pier this week. Apparently some pumpkin haters thought it would be fun to open up on their pumpkin patch in the dunes. It was a bad day to be a Kleberg Pumpkin, but the good news is that the campfire they built in the dunes didn’t catch the grass on fire so we got that going for us. The homeless population is slowly but surely finding its way back on the Kleberg beaches. They have discovered that if they set up camp south of the Kleberg County line they can still dodge removal since even as the area is patrolled by Nueces County Constables under an agreement with Kleberg County any enforcement of squatting laws require they be booked in Kleberg County which means a trip to Kingsville. They were pushed from the area when Nueces County bought the land and the area had a law enforcement presence for the first time, and many of them relocated under the JFK Bridge only to be removed from there. So now they are back to staking claims on the beaches of Kleberg. The good news is that the Naked Men of Kleberg who used to send us all looking for our Buck Knife to poke out our one good eye are long gone so we got that going for us too. It’s a bounty of riches.
Island traffic study
The City of Corpus Christi and the Metropolitan Planning Organization are moving forward with their traffic study of The Island. The work began over a year ago with traffic counters placed at various locations during peak times to get an accurate count of vehicles. The next step is gathering information from Islanders to determine the scope of the study, and finally to outline a plan for managing the growing traffic coming over the JFK Causeway. An estimate by the Corpus Christi Economic Development Corporation which is developing plans for a second causeway to The Island by 2035, predicts that Island traffic will increase by 104% by the year 2025. Currently an average of about 32,000 vehicles crosses the JFK each day with a peak in the summer season of just over 70,000. The study breaks The Island into three traffic zones from the foot of the JFK to Commodores, from SPID north along State Highway 361, and from Commodores south to the Kleberg County line. It is expected to be complete by mid-2017. 4 In the meantime, say hello if you see us Around The Island.
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Traffic Lights in Place but Hotel Checked Out Work at SPID/Aquarius underway but development plans in limbo
By Dale Rankin
In early 2015 a developer approached the City of Corpus Christi with a proposition. If the city would install a traffic light at the SPID/Aquarius intersection near the base of the JFK Causeway the developer would
build retail space and a 105-room Hampton Inn on the east side of the intersection. The installation of the light, he said, was necessary in order to build the hotel.
Live Music A18
Moon Goes to India A9
developers are currently looking for another hotel to take its place and that while discussions are ongoing with Starbucks to place a store at the location no agreement is in place. “The site has not been platted and we may combine some of the lots,” said Lynann Pinkham with Cravey Real Estate Services who is working on the project. “There currently is no hotel in the works. We are talking to operators.” Earlier this month the Island Strategic Action Committee, an advisory committee to the Corpus Christi City Council, voted unanimously to recommend that the light not be activated until the warning device is in place on the JFK Causeway. The vote was taken after members noticed that the warning device, which by the original agreement was to be placed on the causeway before the highpoint
New Faces to Represent The Island at City Hall The Island will be represented by some new faces at City Hall as Tuesday’s elections will send two new At-Large members to the Corpus Christi City Council and Mayor Nelda Martinez will leave office at the end of 2016. Three of the five candidates endorsed by a vote of the Island United Political Action Committee, comprised of the 7354 registered voters on The Island, won their seats. Martinez and At-Large Council member Chad Magill which were endorsed by the IUPAC lost their races, while three IUPAC-endorsed candidates, Greg Smith in the District 4 Council seat and Paulette Guajardo and Michael Hunter in At-Large seats won their races. The surprise winners of the night at City Hall were former council
Mayor
199,051 Total registered voters Nueces County 2016
4102 Island votes for Nelda Martinez
192,083 Total registered voters in Nueces County 2012
2662 Island votes for Dan McQueen
97,801 Total votes cast in 2012 General Election (51% turnout)
At Large City Council
Island Vote North Padre
Now almost two years later the cost is $1.2 million and traffic lights are up but not activated, work on the intersection is underway, but a spokesperson for the developer said Wednesday the Hampton Inn is not coming to that location and the
“I wish I had an announcement for you now but I don’t,” Pinkham said this week. “There are a lot of moving parts right now.”
For complete Island voter returns see the item in this issue.
Total Nueces County
37.5% of county registered voters who voted early 2016
What is not clear is who will pay for the warning device, the city or the developer, and how much it will cost, and further when final plans for development at the site might be in place.
Islanders favored Martinez in the Mayor’s race, Smith in the District 4 race, and Hunter, Magill, and McComb in the At-Large race.
Vote Totals
74,737 Total Early votes 2016
of the roadway blocked the view of the intersection, was instead being installed on an overhead beam at the base of the causeway on the Island side.
Across the county 106,913 of the 198,913 registered voters cast ballots, 54%, while in the two main precincts on Padre Island 4957 votes were cast, a 67% turnout.
Island by the Numbers
58,075 Total votes cast in 2014 City of Corpus Christi Elections (31% of registered voters)
The developer, San Antonio-based Turner Busby, would spend $426,000 to install the light, reconfigure the intersection, and place warning devices on the JFK Causeway to warn drivers that a light at the bottom of the causeway could cause traffic to back up as they crested the top of the roadway and they should be prepared to stop. Total cost of the project was estimated at just over $650,000.
member and Nueces County Commission Joe McComb who was the top vote getter in the At-Large race where the top three finishers take office when new terms begin in January, and the newly elected Mayor Dan McQueen who handily beat incumbent Nelda Martinez by 7947 votes.
7364 Registered voters on North Padre Island 4957 Ballots cast on North Padre Island 67% Voter Turnout on North Padre Island 3541 Early Votes at Schlitterbahn polling site 2952 Total Island voters in 2014 election
2005 Island votes for Michael Hunter 1708 Island votes for Joe McComb 1656 Island votes for Chad Magill 1132 Island votes for Paulette Guajardo District 4 City Council 2229 Island votes for Greg Smith 935 Island votes for Lloyd Stegemann 10400 total votes for Greg Smith 4943 total votes for Lloyd Stegemann Port Aransas 3210 Registered voters in Port Aransas 2200 Votes cast in Port Aransas
4492 Total Island voters in 2012 election
69% Voter turnout in Port Aransas
5311 Early Votes cast at polling sites in Flour Bluff
1327 total Port Aransas votes in 2014 election
1692 Early Votes in Port Aransas
No timetable was set for when plans would be finalized.
A little Island history
St. Louis, Brownsville and Mexico Railway was to be the Catalyst for Growth in South Texas more than made up for the
When developers looked at South Texas in the summer of 1903 they saw potential. The same type of potential as South Florida that only needed the same thing for it to boom; a way to get there. The answer was the St. Louis Brownsville, and Mexico Railway. Its northern terminus was in of all places Sinton and its Southern U.S. terminus was where it crossed the Rio Grande in Brownsville. Another branch extended west to Starr County and eventually extensions were built from Sinton to connect it with Victoria, Houston, and Port O”Connor with the idea of eventually providing continious connections to Chicago, St. Louis and Memphis in the north, and Tampico and Mexico City in the south. It was an ambitious plan hatched at the first headquarters in Corpus Christi with initial capital of $1 million. The boared of directors reads like a Who’s Who of South Texas; Robert J. Kleberg and Arthur E. Spohn, both of Corpus Christi; Robert Driscoll, Jr., Uriah Lott, and
cost of the land they donated. It’s the old saying, “How do you make $2 million? First you get $1 million.”
Casa Ricardo Hotel along the rail line in Kingsville Richard King, all of Nueces County; John G. Kenedy, James B. Wells, Francisco Yturria, and Thomas Carson, all of Cameron County. Uriah Lott was named first president of the St. Louis, Brownsville and Mexico and the headquarters was eventually moved to Kingsville In those days the builders of new rail lines were rewarded with bonuses of land, lots of it, and this one was no
exception. They got $190,000 in cash bonuses and 90,000 acres. Citizens of Brownsville and Bay City gave $40,000, while the Calhoun County Cattle Company donated $150,000. Henrietta King gave 75,000 acres of land in Cameron and Kleberg counties, 640 acres for the townsite of Kingsville, and forty acres for shops. The increased value of the land the donors kept along the route
tion began at Robstown in August 1903, and the 142 miles to Brownsville opened on July 4, 1904. Sinton was reached on April 10, 1905; Bay City on April 10, 1906; and Algoa, 343 miles from Brownsville, on May 28, 1907. From Algoa to Houston the company secured trackage rights over the Gulf, Colorado and Santa Fe Railway Company. The line was opened through from Houston to Brownsville on December 31, 1907. A branch line from Harlingen through Mission to Sam Fordyce, fifty-five miles in length, was constructed between May and December 1904. For the first time South Texas had an umbilical cord to the outside world
History continued on A4